RadioButton

Radio button UI component

• 

Description

A radio button UI component allows an app user to select one of a group of options from within a button group. Use the RadioButton object to modify the appearance and behavior of a radio button after you create it.

Creation

Create a radio button in an app using the uiradiobutton function.

Properties

Button

Value — State of radio button

1 | 0

State of radio button, specified as 1 (true) or 0 (false). Within a button group, only one button can be selected at a time. The state of the first radio button added to a button group is 1, by default. Subsequent buttons added to the same button group have a default state of 0.

When the Value property of a RadioButton changes to 1, the Value of the property for the previously selected RadioButton changes to 0. In addition, the SelectedObject property value of the parent ButtonGroup is updated.

If you programmatically change the Value property of a RadioButton to 0, MATLAB^® sets the Value property of the first RadioButton added to the ButtonGroup to 1. If the first RadioButton added is the one for which you programmatically set the Value property to 0, then MATLAB sets the Value property for the second RadioButton added to the ButtonGroup to 1.

Note

The first RadioButton added to a ButtonGroup is not necessarily the first RadioButton listed in the Children property of the ButtonGroup.

Text — Button label

'Radio Button' (default) | character vector | cell array of character vectors | string scalar | string array | ...

Button label, specified as a character vector, cell array of character vectors, string scalar, string array, or 1-D categorical array. Specify a character vector or string scalar to label the button with a single line of text. Use a cell array or string array to label the button with multiple lines of text. Each element in the array represents a separate line of text. If you specify this property as a categorical array, MATLAB uses the values in the array, not the full set of categories.

Interpreter — Button text interpreter

'none' (default) | 'tex' | 'latex' | 'html'

Button text interpreter, specified as:

• 'none' — Display literal characters.

• 'tex'— Interpret text using a subset of TeX markup.

• 'latex'— Interpret text using a subset of LaTeX markup.

• 'html'— Interpret text using a subset of HTML markup.

TeX Markup

Use TeX markup to add superscripts and subscripts and to include special characters in the text.

Modifiers remain in effect until the end of the text. Superscripts and subscripts are an exception because they modify only the next character or the characters within the curly braces. When you set the interpreter to 'tex', the supported modifiers are as follows.

Modifier	Description	Example
^{ }	Superscript	'text^{superscript}'
_{ }	Subscript	'text_{subscript}'
\bf	Bold font	'\bf text'
\it	Italic font	'\it text'
\sl	Oblique font (usually the same as italic font)	'\sl text'
\rm	Normal font	'\rm text'
\fontname{specifier}	Font name — Replace specifier with the name of a font family. You can use this in combination with other modifiers.	'\fontname{Courier} text'
\fontsize{specifier}	Font size —Replace specifier with a numeric scalar value in point units.	'\fontsize{15} text'
\color{specifier}	Font color — Replace specifier with one of these colors: red, green, yellow, magenta, blue, black, white, gray, darkGreen, orange, or lightBlue.	'\color{magenta} text'
\color[rgb]{specifier}	Custom font color — Replace specifier with a three-element RGB triplet.	'\color[rgb]{0,0.5,0.5} text'

This table lists the supported special characters for the 'tex' interpreter.

Character Sequence	Symbol	Character Sequence	Symbol	Character Sequence	Symbol
\alpha	α	\upsilon	υ	\sim	~
\angle	∠	\phi	ϕ	\leq	≤
\ast	*	\chi	χ	\infty	∞
\beta	β	\psi	ψ	\clubsuit	♣
\gamma	γ	\omega	ω	\diamondsuit	♦
\delta	δ	\Gamma	Γ	\heartsuit	♥
\epsilon	ϵ	\Delta	Δ	\spadesuit	♠
\zeta	ζ	\Theta	Θ	\leftrightarrow	↔
\eta	η	\Lambda	Λ	\leftarrow	←
\theta	θ	\Xi	Ξ	\Leftarrow	⇐
\vartheta	ϑ	\Pi	Π	\uparrow	↑
\iota	ι	\Sigma	Σ	\rightarrow	→
\kappa	κ	\Upsilon	ϒ	\Rightarrow	⇒
\lambda	λ	\Phi	Φ	\downarrow	↓
\mu	µ	\Psi	Ψ	\circ	º
\nu	ν	\Omega	Ω	\pm	±
\xi	ξ	\forall	∀	\geq	≥
\pi	π	\exists	∃	\propto	∝
\rho	ρ	\ni	∍	\partial	∂
\sigma	σ	\cong	≅	\bullet	•
\varsigma	ς	\approx	≈	\div	÷
\tau	τ	\Re	ℜ	\neq	≠
\equiv	≡	\oplus	⊕	\aleph	ℵ
\Im	ℑ	\cup	∪	\wp	℘
\otimes	⊗	\subseteq	⊆	\oslash	∅
\cap	∩	\in	∈	\supseteq	⊇
\supset	⊃	\lceil	⌈	\subset	⊂
\int	∫	\cdot	·	\o	ο
\rfloor	⌋	\neg	¬	\nabla	∇
\lfloor	⌊	\times	x	\ldots	...
\perp	⊥	\surd	√	\prime	´
\wedge	∧	\varpi	ϖ	\0	∅
\rceil	⌉	\rangle	〉	\mid	|
\vee	∨	\langle	〈	\copyright	©

LaTeX Markup

To use LaTeX markup, set the interpreter to 'latex'. Use LaTeX markup to format and display mathematical expressions, equations, and special characters. Use dollar symbols around the marked up text. For example, use '$\int_1^{20} x^2 dx$' for inline mode or '$$\int_1^{20} x^2 dx$$' for display mode.

The displayed text uses the default LaTeX font style. The FontName, FontWeight, and FontAngle properties do not have an effect. To change the font style, use LaTeX markup.

MATLAB supports most standard LaTeX math mode commands. For more information, see Supported LaTeX Commands.

HTML Markup

To use HTML markup, set the interpreter to 'html'. Setting font styles using HTML overrides any equivalent font properties. For example, this code creates a radio button with red text.

fig = uifigure;
bg = uibuttongroup(fig);
rb = uiradiobutton(bg,"Interpreter","html");
rb.Text = '<p style="color: red;">Text</p>';
rb.FontColor = "blue";

The interpreter supports a subset of HTML markup. As a general guideline, the interpreter supports text-related tags and styles. Unsupported tags and styles are ignored.

This table lists the supported elements and element attributes.

HTML Element	Attributes	Description
a	style, target, href, title	Hyperlink
abbr	style, title	Abbreviation or acronym
address	style	Contact information
article	style	Self-contained, independent content
aside	style	Content indirectly related to the main content
b	style	Bold text
bdi	style, dir	Content formatted in a different direction from surrounding text
bdo	style, dir	Content formatted in a different direction from surrounding text
big	style	Text one font size level larger than surrounding text (obsolete in HTML5)
blockquote	style, cite	Extended quotation
br	n/a	Line break
caption	style	Caption or title of a table
center	style	Content centered horizontally
cite	style	Title of a creative work
code	style	Fragment of code
col	style, align, valign, span, width	Column within a table
colgroup	style, align, valign, span, width	Group of columns within a table
dd	style	Term or value in a description list
del	style, datetime	Text that was deleted from a document
details	style, open	Interactive widget with text visible only when toggled to 'open' state
dl	style	Description list
dt	style	Term or value in a description list
em	style	Emphasized text (typically displayed in italic)
font	style, color, size, face	Text with specified font properties (obsolete in HTML5)
footer	style	Footer
h1. h2, h3, h4, h5, h6	style	Section heading — <h1> is the highest level of heading and <h6> is the lowest
header	style	Introductory content
hr	style	Thematic break
i	style	Text offset from the surrounding content — by default rendered as italic
ins	style, datetime	Text inserted into a document
li	style	Item in a list
mark	style	Marked or highlighted text
ol	style	Ordered list
p	style	Paragraph
pre	style	Preformatted text
s	style	Text with a strikethrough
strike	style	Text with a strikethrough (obsolete in HTML5)
section	style	Standalone section
small	style	Text one font size level smaller than surrounding text (obsolete in HTML5)
sub	style	Subscript
sup	style	Superscript
strong	style	Text with strong importance
table	style, width, border, align, valign	Table
tbody	style, align, valign	Table body
td	style, width, rowspan, colspan, align, valign	Table data cell
tfoot	style, align, valign	Set of table rows that summarize the table columns
th	style, width, rowspan, colspan, align, valign	Table data cell specified as a header of a group of cells
thead	style, align, valign	Set of table rows that specify the column heads
tr	style, rowspan, align, valign	Row of table cells
tt	style	Monospace text (obsolete in HTML5)
u	style	Text with an unarticulated annotation — by default rendered as an underline
ul	style	Unordered list

For more information about these elements, see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element.

To use HTML markup to create a hyperlink that runs MATLAB code, see Create Hyperlinks that Run Functions.

You can use HTML style attributes to format HTML content. A style attribute is a string of CSS attributes and their values.

These CSS attributes are supported:

• background-color

• border-bottom

• border-bottom-color

• border-bottom-left-radius

• border-bottom-right-radius

• border-bottom-style

• border-bottom-width

• border-left

• border-left-color

• border-left-style

• border-left-width

• border-radius

• border-right

• border-right-color

• border-right-style

• border-right-width

• border-spacing

• border-style

• border-top

• border-top-color

• border-top-left-radius

• border-top-right-radius

• border-top-style

• border-top-width

• border-width

• color

• direction

• font-family

• font-size

• font-style

• font-weight

• height

• hidden

• line-height

• margin

• margin-bottom

• margin-left

• margin-right

• margin-top

• max-height

• max-width

• min-height

• min-width

• overflow

• overflow-wrap

• overflow-x

• overflow-y

• padding

• padding-bottom

• padding-left

• padding-right

• padding-top

• text-align

• text-anchor

• text-decoration

• text-indent

• text-overflow

• text-shadow

• text-transform

• title

• translate

• white-space

• width

For more information about these attributes, see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference.

WordWrap — Word wrapping to fit component width

'off' (default) | on/off logical value

Word wrapping to fit component width, specified as 'off' or 'on', or as numeric or logical 0 (false) or 1 (true). A value of 'off' is equivalent to false, and 'on' is equivalent to true. Thus, you can use the value of this property as a logical value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState.

Use this property to prevent text from getting clipped horizontally when the width of the component is smaller than the text you want to display.

• 'off' — Text does not wrap.

• 'on' — Breaks text into new lines so that each line fits within the width of the component and avoids breaking words when possible.

Setting the WordWrap property to 'on' does not prevent text from getting clipped vertically when the height of the component is too small to display all the lines of text.

Font

FontName — Font name

system supported font name

Font name, specified as a system supported font name. The default font depends on the specific operating system and locale.

If the specified font is not available, then MATLAB uses the best match among the fonts available on the system where the app is running.

Example: 'Arial'

FontSize — Font size

positive number

Font size, specified as a positive number. The units of measurement are pixels. The default font size depends on the specific operating system and locale.

Example: 14

FontWeight — Font weight

'normal' (default) | 'bold'

Font weight, specified as one of these values:

• 'normal' — Default weight as defined by the particular font

• 'bold' — Thicker character outlines than 'normal'

Not all fonts have a bold font weight. For fonts that do not, specifying 'bold' results in the normal font weight.

FontAngle — Font angle

'normal' (default) | 'italic'

Font angle, specified as 'normal' or 'italic'. Not all fonts have an italic font angle. For fonts that do not, specifying 'italic' results in the normal font angle.

FontColor — Font color

[0 0 0] (default) | RGB triplet | hexadecimal color code | 'r' | 'g' | 'b' | ...

Font color, specified as an RGB triplet, a hexadecimal color code, or one of the options listed in the table.

RGB triplets and hexadecimal color codes are useful for specifying custom colors.

• An RGB triplet is a three-element row vector whose elements specify the intensities of the red, green, and blue components of the color. The intensities must be in the range [0,1]; for example, [0.4 0.6 0.7].

• A hexadecimal color code is a character vector or a string scalar that starts with a hash symbol (#) followed by three or six hexadecimal digits, which can range from 0 to F. The values are not case sensitive. Thus, the color codes "#FF8800", "#ff8800", "#F80", and "#f80" are equivalent.

Alternatively, you can specify some common colors by name. This table lists the named color options, the equivalent RGB triplets, and hexadecimal color codes.

Color Name	Short Name	RGB Triplet	Hexadecimal Color Code	Appearance
"red"	"r"	[1 0 0]	"#FF0000"
"green"	"g"	[0 1 0]	"#00FF00"
"blue"	"b"	[0 0 1]	"#0000FF"
"cyan"	"c"	[0 1 1]	"#00FFFF"
"magenta"	"m"	[1 0 1]	"#FF00FF"
"yellow"	"y"	[1 1 0]	"#FFFF00"
"black"	"k"	[0 0 0]	"#000000"
"white"	"w"	[1 1 1]	"#FFFFFF"

Here are the RGB triplets and hexadecimal color codes for the default colors MATLAB uses in many types of plots.

RGB Triplet	Hexadecimal Color Code	Appearance
[0 0.4470 0.7410]	"#0072BD"
[0.8500 0.3250 0.0980]	"#D95319"
[0.9290 0.6940 0.1250]	"#EDB120"
[0.4940 0.1840 0.5560]	"#7E2F8E"
[0.4660 0.6740 0.1880]	"#77AC30"
[0.3010 0.7450 0.9330]	"#4DBEEE"
[0.6350 0.0780 0.1840]	"#A2142F"

Interactivity

Visible — State of visibility

'on' (default) | on/off logical value

State of visibility, specified as 'on' or 'off', or as numeric or logical 1 (true) or 0 (false). A value of 'on' is equivalent to true, and 'off' is equivalent to false. Thus, you can use the value of this property as a logical value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState.

• 'on' — Display the object.

• 'off' — Hide the object without deleting it. You still can access the properties of an invisible UI component.

To make your app start faster, set the Visible property to 'off' for all UI components that do not need to appear at startup.

Enable — Operational state of button

'on' (default) | on/off logical value

Operational state of the button, specified as 'on' or 'off', or as numeric or logical 1 (true) or 0 (false). A value of 'on' is equivalent to true, and 'off' is equivalent to false. Thus, you can use the value of this property as a logical value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState.

• If you set this property to 'on', then the appearance of the button indicates that the app user can interact with it.

• If you set this property to 'off', then the appearance of the button appears dimmed, indicating that the app user cannot interact with it.

Tooltip — Tooltip

'' (default) | character vector | cell array of character vectors | string array | 1-D categorical array

Tooltip, specified as a character vector, cell array of character vectors, string array, or 1-D categorical array. Use this property to display a message when the user hovers the pointer over the component at run time. The tooltip displays even when the component is disabled. To display multiple lines of text, specify a cell array of character vectors or a string array. Each element in the array becomes a separate line of text. If you specify this property as a categorical array, MATLAB uses the values in the array, not the full set of categories.

ContextMenu — Context menu

empty GraphicsPlaceholder array (default) | ContextMenu object

Context menu, specified as a ContextMenu object created using the uicontextmenu function. Use this property to display a context menu when you right-click on a component.

Position

Position — Location and size of radio button

[10 10 91 22] (default) | [left bottom width height]

Location and size of radio button, specified as a vector of the form [left bottom width height]. This table describes each element in the vector.

Element	Description
left	Distance from the inner left edge of the button group to the outer left edge of the radio button
bottom	Distance from the inner bottom edge of the button group to the outer bottom edge of the radio button
width	Distance between the right and left outer edges of the radio button (including text)
height	Distance between the top and bottom outer edges of the radio button

The Position values are relative to the drawable area of the button group. The drawable area is the area inside the borders of the button group and does not include the area occupied by the title.

All measurements are in pixel units.

InnerPosition — Location and size of radio button

[10 10 91 22] (default) | [left bottom width height]

Location and size of radio button, specified as a four element vector of the form [left bottom width height]. All measurements are in pixel units. This property value is identical to the Position property.

OuterPosition — Location and size of radio button

[10 10 91 22] (default) | [left bottom width height]

This property is read-only.

Location and size of radio button, returned as a four element vector of the form [left bottom width height]. All measurements are in pixel units. This property value is identical to the Position property.

Callbacks

CreateFcn — Creation function

'' (default) | function handle | cell array | character vector

Object creation function, specified as one of these values:

• Function handle.

• Cell array in which the first element is a function handle. Subsequent elements in the cell array are the arguments to pass to the callback function.

• Character vector containing a valid MATLAB expression (not recommended). MATLAB evaluates this expression in the base workspace.

For more information about specifying a callback as a function handle, cell array, or character vector, see Callbacks in App Designer.

This property specifies a callback function to execute when MATLAB creates the object. MATLAB initializes all property values before executing the CreateFcn callback. If you do not specify the CreateFcn property, then MATLAB executes a default creation function.

Setting the CreateFcn property on an existing component has no effect.

If you specify this property as a function handle or cell array, you can access the object that is being created using the first argument of the callback function. Otherwise, use the gcbo function to access the object.

DeleteFcn — Deletion function

'' (default) | function handle | cell array | character vector

Object deletion function, specified as one of these values:

• Function handle.

• Cell array in which the first element is a function handle. Subsequent elements in the cell array are the arguments to pass to the callback function.

• Character vector containing a valid MATLAB expression (not recommended). MATLAB evaluates this expression in the base workspace.

For more information about specifying a callback as a function handle, cell array, or character vector, see Callbacks in App Designer.

This property specifies a callback function to execute when MATLAB deletes the object. MATLAB executes the DeleteFcn callback before destroying the properties of the object. If you do not specify the DeleteFcn property, then MATLAB executes a default deletion function.

If you specify this property as a function handle or cell array, you can access the object that is being deleted using the first argument of the callback function. Otherwise, use the gcbo function to access the object.

Callback Execution Control

Interruptible — Callback interruption

'on' (default) | on/off logical value

Callback interruption, specified as 'on' or 'off', or as numeric or logical 1 (true) or 0 (false). A value of 'on' is equivalent to true, and 'off' is equivalent to false. Thus, you can use the value of this property as a logical value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState.

This property determines if a running callback can be interrupted. There are two callback states to consider:

• The running callback is the currently executing callback.

• The interrupting callback is a callback that tries to interrupt the running callback.

MATLAB determines callback interruption behavior whenever it executes a command that processes the callback queue. These commands include drawnow, figure, uifigure, getframe, waitfor, and pause.

If the running callback does not contain one of these commands, then no interruption occurs. MATLAB first finishes executing the running callback, and later executes the interrupting callback.

If the running callback does contain one of these commands, then the Interruptible property of the object that owns the running callback determines if the interruption occurs:

• If the value of Interruptible is 'off', then no interruption occurs. Instead, the BusyAction property of the object that owns the interrupting callback determines if the interrupting callback is discarded or added to the callback queue.

• If the value of Interruptible is 'on', then the interruption occurs. The next time MATLAB processes the callback queue, it stops the execution of the running callback and executes the interrupting callback. After the interrupting callback completes, MATLAB then resumes executing the running callback.

Note

Callback interruption and execution behave differently in these situations:

• If the interrupting callback is a DeleteFcn, CloseRequestFcn, or SizeChangedFcn callback, then the interruption occurs regardless of the Interruptible property value.

• If the running callback is currently executing the waitfor function, then the interruption occurs regardless of the Interruptible property value.

• If the interrupting callback is owned by a Timer object, then the callback executes according to schedule regardless of the Interruptible property value.

Note

When an interruption occurs, MATLAB does not save the state of properties or the display. For example, the object returned by the gca or gcf command might change when another callback executes.

BusyAction — Callback queuing

'queue' (default) | 'cancel'

Callback queuing, specified as 'queue' or 'cancel'. The BusyAction property determines how MATLAB handles the execution of interrupting callbacks. There are two callback states to consider:

• The running callback is the currently executing callback.

• The interrupting callback is a callback that tries to interrupt the running callback.

The BusyAction property determines callback queuing behavior only when both of these conditions are met:

• The running callback contains a command that processes the callback queue, such as drawnow, figure, uifigure, getframe, waitfor, or pause.

• The value of the Interruptible property of the object that owns the running callback is 'off'.

Under these conditions, the BusyAction property of the object that owns the interrupting callback determines how MATLAB handles the interrupting callback. These are possible values of the BusyAction property:

• 'queue' — Puts the interrupting callback in a queue to be processed after the running callback finishes execution.

• 'cancel' — Does not execute the interrupting callback.

BeingDeleted — Deletion status

on/off logical value

This property is read-only.

Deletion status, returned as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState.

MATLAB sets the BeingDeleted property to 'on' when the DeleteFcn callback begins execution. The BeingDeleted property remains set to 'on' until the component object no longer exists.

Check the value of the BeingDeleted property to verify that the object is not about to be deleted before querying or modifying it.

Parent/Child

Parent — Parent container

ButtonGroup object

Parent container, specified as a ButtonGroup object. The ButtonGroup must be in a Figure created using the uifigure function.

HandleVisibility — Visibility of object handle

'on' (default) | 'callback' | 'off'

Visibility of the object handle, specified as 'on', 'callback', or 'off'.

This property controls the visibility of the object in its parent's list of children. When an object is not visible in its parent's list of children, it is not returned by functions that obtain objects by searching the object hierarchy or querying properties. These functions include get, findobj, clf, and close. Objects are valid even if they are not visible. If you can access an object, you can set and get its properties, and pass it to any function that operates on objects.

HandleVisibility Value	Description
'on'	The object is always visible.
'callback'	The object is visible from within callbacks or functions invoked by callbacks, but not from within functions invoked from the command line. This option blocks access to the object at the command-line, but allows callback functions to access it.
'off'	The object is invisible at all times. This option is useful for preventing unintended changes to the UI by another function. Set the HandleVisibility to 'off' to temporarily hide the object during the execution of that function.

Identifiers

Type — Type of graphics object

'uiradiobutton'

This property is read-only.

Type of graphics object, returned as 'uiradiobutton'.

Tag — Object identifier

'' (default) | character vector | string scalar

Object identifier, specified as a character vector or string scalar. You can specify a unique Tag value to serve as an identifier for an object. When you need access to the object elsewhere in your code, you can use the findobj function to search for the object based on the Tag value.

UserData — User data

[] (default) | array

User data, specified as any MATLAB array. For example, you can specify a scalar, vector, matrix, cell array, character array, table, or structure. Use this property to store arbitrary data on an object.

If you are working in App Designer, create public or private properties in the app to share data instead of using the UserData property. For more information, see Share Data Within App Designer Apps.

Object Functions

focus

Focus UI component

Examples

Create Radio Buttons Within a Button Group

Create a button group in a window.

fig = uifigure('Position',[680 678 398 271]);
bg = uibuttongroup(fig,'Position',[137 113 123 85]);   

Create three RadioButton objects, and specify the parent and location of each.

rb1 = uiradiobutton(bg,'Position',[10 60 91 15]);
rb2 = uiradiobutton(bg,'Position',[10 38 91 15]);
rb3 = uiradiobutton(bg,'Position',[10 16 91 15]);

Change the text associated with each radio button.

rb1.Text = 'English';
rb2.Text = 'French';
rb3.Text = 'German';

Change the radio button selection to German.

rb3.Value = true;

Determine the font name of the German radio button text.

font = rb3.FontName

font =

Helvetica

Version History

Introduced in R2016a

R2024a: Specify HTML markup and display equations in text

Enable text markup by setting the Interpreter property. Specify the interpreter as "html", "latex", "tex", or "none". Specifying an interpreter is supported only in App Designer apps and in figures created with the uifigure function.

R2020b: Wrap button text

Use the WordWrap property to prevent text from getting clipped horizontally when the width of the UI component is smaller than the text you want to display. Setting the WordWrap property to 'on' breaks the text into new lines so that each line fits within the component. It avoids breaking words when possible. When the property is set to 'off', the text does not wrap.